Giants' pen has pitchers, not throwers

GIANTS

Updated 11:43 pm, Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Giants' pitcher Santiago Casilla throws in the 9th inning during game 4 of the World Series at Comerica Park on Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012 in Detroit, MI.

Giants' pitcher Santiago Casilla throws in the 9th inning during game 4 of the World Series at Comerica Park on Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012 in Detroit, MI.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

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Sergio Romo's average fastball wouldn't keep many closers in their current jobs.

Sergio Romo's average fastball wouldn't keep many closers in their current jobs.

Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle

Giants' pen has pitchers, not throwers

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Scottsdale, Ariz. --

In one succinct sentence, Santiago Casilla perfectly captured the difference between throwing and pitching. Speaking about teammate Sergio Romo, Casilla said, "Romo's slider at 87 is like a 100-mph fastball."

Casilla did not mean that literally, of course. He was saying the pitches have the same effect. Both can be brutally hard to hit.

No team embodies the difference between pitching and throwing more than the Giants, who won the World Series in 2012 despite their staff finishing 29th out of 30 major-league teams in regular-season fastball velocity at 90.3 mph, according to the analytical website Fangraphs.

The Giants' bullpen finished dead last at 91.4 mph, scrambling the notion that to be successful, a team needs a stable of relievers who can blow hitters' doors off.

A power bullpen can work, too. The Cardinals' and Reds' bullpens finished second and third in the majors in average fastball velocity, at 94.5 and 94.0, to reach the postseason - before the Giants eliminated both.

"Some of it speaks to throwing strikes and being aggressive and letting your defense play behind you," general manager Brian Sabean said. "Some of it is the residue of the parks we play in, starting with our own."

That is a great advantage Sabean has in building a bullpen. He can afford to hand manager Bruce Bochy a cast of slower-throwing pitchers because so many mistake pitches stay in the yard and get caught at AT&T Park.

George Kontos needed to pitch only four games at the new Yankee Stadium to recognize why teams that play in hitters' parks might need a few fire-throwers. Kontos recalled one encounter in New York in 2011 before the Yankees traded him to the Giants.

"I threw B.J. Upton a pretty good slider down and away, but he stayed on it and hit it off the right-field wall for a single, almost for a home run," Kontos said. "At AT&T that ball is caught halfway through right field."

Still, including the postseason, the Giants' bullpen last year preserved 53 road wins, many in hitter havens, including Cincinnati's Great American Ball Park in the Division Series.

Without a reliever approaching Aroldis Chapman's triple-digit velocity, the Giants' bullpen held the Reds to two runs in 14 2/3 innings in the Division Series road games, a huge reason the Giants were able to win all three elimination games and advance to the National League Championship Series.

"We seem to have a lot of different looks, plus the way Boch manages and plays the matchups so well," Sabean said.

Indeed, last year's bullpen principally relied on four righties (Romo, Kontos, Casilla and Clay Hensley) and three lefties (Javier Lopez, Jose Mijares and Jeremy Affeldt) who showcased as many pitching styles as personalities. In later innings opponents rarely saw two Giants relievers who threw the same way.

Bochy surely would not wave off a guy who could throw strikes at 97 mph, but the organization does not see that pitcher as a must-have.

The Giants' top closing prospect, Heath Hembree, had a high-90s fastball. Concerns were raised last year that Hembree's velocity had dropped. But this spring, the baseball staff is not interested in Hembree's fastball, but more focused on taming his location and refining the offspeed pitches he will need to succeed in the majors.

A bullpen that ranks 30th in velocity has to have a cadre of guys who realized at some point in their careers that success lies not in firing cannon after cannon to the plate, but by really pitching.

Casilla, who once had a 100-mph fastball, said he had his epiphany in 2010 when he signed with the Giants after pitching parts or all of six seasons in Oakland.

"I had a really bad year in 2009 and I threw all fastballs, 98, 99, but they could hit it easily," Casilla said. "When I came here I saw a lot of 'pitching.' The pitchers never overthrow. Every time I overthrow, the hitters can see the ball better. I don't know why."

Brian Wilson taught Casilla a cutter and a teammate in the Dominican winter league showed him how to throw a curveball. Casilla's arsenal now features both.

Affeldt said he had his "aha!" moment after 2006, the first of two seasons pitching for Colorado. After banging his head against the wall with a 96-mph fastball that led to a 6.91 ERA, Affeldt finally realized he needed to back off on velocity in favor of location and movement. He lowered his ERA in 2007 to 3.51. At Coors Field it was 1.74.

"I figured it out in Colorado," he said, "because I had to."

Team speed

League rankings for average fastball velocity for playoff teams in 2012:

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